Amid stop-and-frisk flap, Rush touts Bloomberg’s Chicago office
As former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg faces criticism for his previous defense of controversial stop-and-frisk policing strategies that disproportionately targeted blacks and Latinos, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush touted his involvement in the opening of a campaign office to support the embattled billionaire’s run for president.
The South Side campaign office for Bloomberg’s Democratic presidential campaign is at East 87th Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue in Chatham. Rush was on hand for the formal opening of the office on Sunday, Rush’s campaign staff said.
“Yes: Mike has money, but he puts his money where his mouth is,” Rush said in a news release.
“I like Mike because Mike stands and works for moving America forward,” he said.
Rush announced the new office on Tuesday, the day after an audio recording of Bloomberg firmly defending stop-and-frisk law enforcement tactics began circulating on social media. In the clip, Bloomberg can be heard telling an audience at the Aspen Institute in 2015 that it was sensible to send police to minority communities and “throw them against the wall and frisk them.”
“We put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes. That’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is,” Bloomberg can be heard saying. “And the way you get guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them.”
Bloomberg for years defended the tactic as one way to drive down violent crime. Since he launched his run for president, Bloomberg has apologized for stop-and-frisk tactics.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg said the 2015 remarks “do not reflect my commitment to criminal justice reform and racial equity.”
In a statement, Bloomberg said he inherited the stop-and-frisk practice from Rudy Giuliani’s administration but had reduced its use by the time he left office in 2013. He said, “I should have done it faster and sooner.”
Rush first endorsed Bloomberg last month and became one of his cocampaign managers. In a statement Tuesday, Rush addressed the stop-andfrisk criticism facing Bloomberg by acknowledging that he, too, has made policy mistakes such as supporting the now controversial 1994 Crime Bill.
While stop-and-frisk plagued New York’s minority communities, in Chicago, police similarly made street stops that a study by the American Civil Liberties Union found targeted blacks and Latinos in lower-income communities. The 2015 study found that Chicago police made more than 250,000 stops that did not lead to an arrest in mid-2014 — which was much higher than similar stops in New York. The Chicago study and a subsequent lawsuit led to reform measures that are still being worked through.
Rush, 73, has held his congressional seat since 1993. He is facing a challenge in the March 17 primary from three political newcomers: Robert Emmons Jr., Sarah Gad and Ameena Matthews. In his statement, Rush said the former New York mayor has backed nearly two dozen Democratic congressional candidates, and he has a plan to create 1 million new black homeowners and thousands of black-owned businesses over 10 years.
The Associated Press contributed